LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Ipbilosopb? 



of Jfaitb 



/ 

Julian Menrs flDsers, ph. S). 



.V-:"' : .f OF .'/•.. 



Aug i^ta^ 



UNIVERSITY PRESS, EATON & MAINS. 
SYRACU8E, N. Y. 



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DEDICATED 

TO 

W. X. NINDE, U,. D., 

Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

and 

CHARGES P. WAU,, 

Fellow Searchers After Truth. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



Copyrighted by J. H. Myers. 
1896. 






CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Thesis stated, faith defined, 3. Faith outruns reason, 3. 
Persistency of faitH, 3. Faith practical, 4. Doubt 
destructive, 4. Faith fundamental, 5. Questions 
giving rise to present thesis, 5. 

CHAPTER I. 

FAITH AND INTUITION. 

Intuition at beginning of experience, 9. Space intuition 
and geometry, 9. Time, 11. Faith, a yielding of 
being to intuition, 11. Intuitional faith the founda- 
tion of every rational act, 12. 

CHAPTER II. 

FAITH AND REASON. 

Faith, the universal postulate of reason, 17. Faith and 
knowledge in same primary act, 18. " Knowledge 
conditioned by faith," Christlieb, 18. Inferential 
faith, 20. Reasoning, based upon axiomatic as- 
sumptions, — Hamilton 20. 

CHAPTER III. 

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 

Inconsistency of opposing science to faith, 27. Faith at 
basis of scientific investigation, 27. Faith at basis 
of philosophy, 28. " Absurdity of overlooking this 



IV CONTENTS. 

fact," Bowne, 28. " Learning depends on faith," 
Christlieb, 29. Faith and induction, 31. Spencer's 
agnosticism examined, 31. Spencer's inconsistency- 
illustrates truth of thesis. 31. 

CHAPTER IV. 

CONCERNING A FAITH-FACULTY. 

Soul not partitioned into faculties — acts as a whole, 35. 
Mistake of religionists in contending for a faith- 
faculty pointed out, 36. Logical absurdity of 
the argument, 37. " Faith-faculty inadmissible," 
Harris, 37. 

CHAPTER V. 

FAITH AND VOLITION. 

Faith is volitional, 41. Irresponsibility for beliefs, not 
tenable, inconsistent with freedom, 42. Erroneous 
faith corrected by experience — child illustration, 
43. Unbelief, the antithesis of faith, 43. Result of 
unbelief disastrous to being, 44. Reciprocal value 
of faith and knowledge, 44. True faith, complement 
of being, and known by effects, 45. 

CHAPTER VI. 

FAITH AND RELIGION. 

No new principle needed — Thesis, a foundation of true 
synthesis of faith and reason, 49. Shall intuition 
be called faith or knowledge, Harris, 50. Con- 
fusion in nomenclature, 51. Intuitions of morals 
and religion fundamental, 52. Man always religious, 
not result of reflective thought, Pfleiderer, 52. 
God idea, an intuition of the race, 53. Evolution in 



CONTENTS. V 

religion, 53. Primitive religious act, an act of faith, 
54. Man does not demonstrate God, 54. God-idea 
the background of human consciousness, 55. Im- 
possible to harmonize thesis with Spencer's agnos- 
ticism, 55. Spencer's intuitive faith inconsistent 
with his "criticism, "56. Spencer's concessions sup- 
port thesis, 56. 

CHAPTER VII. 

FAITH AND SIN. 

Sin a fact, must be considered, 61. Sin, disobedience, 
injury, 62. Remedy for disobedience in nature, 
62. Faith the remedy for sin, 62. Child-faith, the 
ideal, 63. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FAITH AND REVELATION. 

Revelation antecedently probable, 67. Supernatural 
remedy, addressed to freedom, 67. Harmony re- 
stored by faith, 68. Disastrous effects of sin, 68* 
Devout heathen saved, 69. 

CHAPTER IX. 

FAITH AND SCRIPTURE. 

Thesis corroborated by Scripture, 73. Lost pattern of 
manhood supernaturally restored, 74. Jesus Christ, 
the ideal and center of revelation, 74. True faith, 
a surrender to Christ, 74. Experience, the test, 74. 
Unbelief, refusal to surrender to Christ — disastrous 
result, Scripture proofs, 74, 75. " Faith the neces- 
sary condition of right life," Harris, 76. Duty of 
spreading knowledge of Christ — God's method of 



VI CONTENTS. 

communicating the truth, 77. Reciprocal value of 
faith and knowledge seen in Scripture, 77. " Sub- 
mission brings light," Christlieb, 78. Abraham, 79. 
Faith leads to self -disco very, 80. 

CHAPTER X. 

CREDULITY OK UNBEUEF. 
Variety of religious beliefs accounted for, 83. Credulity 
the revenge of faith, 84. False beliefs the result of 
unbelief — Scripture proof, 84. " Atheism, a moral 
fault, avenges itself in idolatry," Christlieb, 85. 
False postulates assumed by infidelity, 86. Illus- 
trated by analysis of argument of Strauss, 86- 
87. Infidelity, result of unbelief, 87. 

CHAPTER XI. 

TRIUMPHS OF FAITH. 

Men of faith have wrought most, 91. Men of faith have 
advanced science, 92. Men of faith, the seers of 
humanity, 92. This seer-like quality the pledge of 
man's return to God, 93. Practical and ethical value 
of faith, 93. Faith begets hope and expectation ; it 
is the complement of being, 94. Faith sees the 
beyond, 95. 

CHAPTER XII. 

CHRIST AND HIS ENEMIES. 

i. — Introductory. Philosophic thought is practical, 
99. Aim of chapter, 100. 2. — History prophetic. 
Christ and Herod, 100. Early struggle of Christian- 
ity, Jesus lives, 10 1. Victory of Christ over heathen- 
ism, 102. The philosophic war, 103. 3. — Infidelity 



CONTENTS. VII 

self-destructive, 102. Consistency of Christianity ; 
Inconsistency of proposed substitutes, 104. Mr. 
Harrison, George Eliot, Seeley, Arnold, 105. Agnos- 
ticism and Positivism, 106. Hamilton andMansel, 
106. Pantheism and materialism, 107. Tuebingen 
School and Renan, 108. Ethical value of faith and 
science, 109. Synthesis of faith and science, revival 
of faith, no. 



INTRODUCTION. 



1 * Columbus was not so great when he set foot on the 
new world as when, on that temp est- tossed voyage, he 
held his own purpose against the insubordination of his 
sailors. Every energetic spirit will confess that the 
greatest exhilaration and delight comes, not from es- 
tablished success, but in the hour of uncertainty when 
the man matches himself against a world of obstacles 
and realizes that his fortunes are at stake. Such risks 
are not those of the gambler, or of the rash and incon- 
siderate speculator, but of the man who, putting his 
faith in the right of the best to win and of the highest 
to succeed, sets his hand to the building of a new 
structure in the world that always seems overcrowded, 
but which always has room enough and to spare for the 
real builder. The first duty of such a builder, when he 
has laid his corner-stone, is to discard forever the 
thought of failure and to look upon success as already 
achieved ; and so, without the waste of an ounce of 
strength, to put his whole soul into the work of each 
day. A sublime faith rarely fails of its reward. With 
reverence be it said that there can be no greater satis- 
faction to God than to take Him at his word, and to 
believe in the best and work for the highest.' ' — The 
Outlook. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 



THESIS.— Faith is the self-surrender of the soul to 
apparent truth. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Deeds of faith are the grandest achievements 
of humanity. Faith is constructive. Doubt is 
destructive. Faith energizes the soul with the 
pulsations of divine power. It begets hope and 
expectation. Doubt begets despair. 

Faith is not contrary to reason, but outruns 
reason. Reason plods ; faith flies. Faith an- 
nihilates both time and distance. It brings 
eternity near and God down to man, or rather 
lifts humanity up to God. Faith leaps the gulf, 
while reason hesitates upon the hither side. 
Faith looks up ; reason down. Reason spends a 
lifetime criticising a step, while faith rests upon 
the summit of achievement. 

Faith persists in spite of doubt and infidelity. 
The persistency of faith is a fact too often neg- 
lected in boasted scientific inductions. Skepticism 



4 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

begs the question by leaving out this supreme 
fact — the common existence and persistence of 
faith. The persistence of faith would argue its 
inherent constitutionality. Reason must yield to 
faith, that is reason to be consistent with itself 
must supply a place for faith in its completed 
system of knowledge. It must at least admit 
this universal fact and must endeavor to account 
for it. 

Faith is practical. We somehow instinctively 
feel that it is better than doubt as a foundation 
for practical morality. The best civilization has 
been developed upon a foundation of faith. The 
highest individual moral life has been exempli- 
fied by men who have believed much. 

The possibility of doubt may be beneficial ; it 
may also be dangerous, unbalanced by faith. To 
rest all upon the possibility to doubt is to attempt 
to build upon a mere negation. The result is 
disastrous. History reveals the wrecks of many 
attempts. Skepticism has developed skepticism ; 
doubt has developed doubt, and is calculated 
rather to retard that intellectual development of 
which it boasts. There is, however, a legitimate 
inquiry, but this is based upon faith. Those 
who have believed most have wrought most in 
every field of human endeavor. Fides is basal ; 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 5 

it lies at the foundation of man's intellectual and 
spiritual development. 

The fundamental character of faith and its per- 
sistence have often forced the inquiry, "What is 
faith as an act of the soul ? ' ' May it be legiti- 
mately considered psychologically and meta- 
physically ? If there is a faith as a primary act 
of the soul, how is this faith related to the so- 
called religious faith, and wherein do they agree 
or differ ? How is faith related to responsibility ? 

These and similar questions growing out of 
them have led to investigations, the results of 
which are set forth in the following discussion, 
which suggests at least a great truth worthy 
of deepest consideration, though not perfectly 
treated. The writer will be content if it suggests 
to the thoughtful food for thought. 



I. 

FAITH AND INTUITION. 



" The mind, intuitive in its lowest energy, is equally 
so in its highest. If looking outward it has no further 
explanation of the visible world than that it is present 
in apprehension and therefore must be conceived as 
existent, so looking upward from the sphere of finite re- 
ality it perceives a higher world of truth which equally 
makes itself good in apprehension. Such a higher world 
of intuition, by which we apprehend realities beyond 
the region of the sensible is one which is admitted by 
every school of philosophy save that which, from the 
extremely unphilosophical assumption lying at its basis, 
is bound to ignore everything beyond the sensible. " 

— Tuu/)CH. 

" Because this belief springs from man's inmost self, 
from all in him which constitutes him a human person, 
it entwines itself with all his normal action. Therefore 
it is as certain to him as his own existence. To give up 
this belief is to give up his belief in himself as a rational 
man, to give up all that is noblest and most worthy in 
the development of his being and in the ends for which 
he lives. " * * * * 

" All knowledge begins in spontaneous belief. A nu- 
cleus of knowledge within a periphery of indefiniteness 
opening room for opinion, conjecture, and error in 
thought, and for progressive enlargement of knowledge." 

— Samuki. Harris. 



CHAPTER I. 
FAITH AND INTUITION. 



" I believed, therefore have I spoken." Ps. cxvi: 10. 



Experience presupposes intuition and is impos- 
sible without it. Intuition exists at the very 
beginning of experience by which the develop- 
ment of experience is controlled and to which 
the soul yields itself. Experience brings to light 
intuition ; reflection may define it but it was 
there before, implicit in the first act of ex- 
perience. 

The soul assumes and yields itself to intuition 
in all its processes of reasoning. This is an act 
of faith and it is only by this intuitional faith, if 
we may so term it, that any process of reasoning 
is possible at all. 

The space-intuition, though it may emerge 
conspicuously at the end of a process of geomet- 
rical reasoning, is not the result of such reason- 
ing, but was implicit at the very beginning of 



IO PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

that process, and without it the process itself 
would have been impossible. 

Iverach* has emphasized this truth as follows : 
" Geometricians assume the space-intuition, they 
work from it, they appeal to it at every stage of 
their demonstrations, and this intuition has such 
authority that a singular act of perception, pre- 
sentative or representative, is sufficient to estab- 
lish the validity of the truth thus intuitively 
seen as a universal truth, true everywhere and 
always. In this sphere one presentation is equal 
to a thousand ; our conviction of the validity of 
intuitive truth, at the very first presentation of it 
to our minds, is so strong that increased experi- 
ence does not make it stronger. The space- 
intuition has no need of verification, it verifies 
itself, and it is the touchstone of the truth of 
geometrical demonstration . ' ' 

As to the source of the space-intuition it is not 
necessary for our present purpose to enter further 
into the metaphysical discussion. It is sufficient 
to say the space -intuition is always there, staring 
us in the face authoritative, undemonstrated, to 
which the soul yields itself by an act which 

*In " Present Day Tracts." Vol. vm, No. xlviii, 
P. 7. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. II 

is certainly in the nature of faith. The soul 
trusts itself. 

The same may be said of the intuition of time. 
I may leave to the metaphysician to discuss 
whether time is finite or infinite, real or ideal, 
it is sufficient for me to know that the intuition 
of time is an ever present reality in human ex- 
perience, that the mind does not question its 
authority but accepts it, yields itself unreservedly 
to it in every act of thought, never attempts to 
demonstrate but trusts. This is faith. 

It is not necessary, perhaps, to carry the illus- 
tration to the whole extent of intuitive truth. A 
few illustrations may serve as well as many. I 
think, however, that the apprehension is growing 
that the range of intuitive truth has been too 
much narrowed and the tendency now is to 
broaden its range and significance. 

There is an unfathomable mystery in all intu- 
ition, yet this does not preclude my faith in it. I 
can explain none of these intuitions, yet I stake 
my conclusions on them. I accept them. I be- 
lieve. I yield my entire being to them. This is 
faith. It is plain therefore, that no process ot 
thought is possible without faith — faith in as- 
sumed principles or propositions to which the 



12 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

soul yields itself as absolute verities in all its 
processes. 

Is it not therefore true that faith lies at the 
foundation of knowledge ? I have faith in my- 
self as existing. I have faith in the possibility 
of thought. I have faith in the intuitions of the 
soul as absolute, though unverified and undemon- 
strated. I have implicit faith that reason is one 
and the same everywhere and in all individuals, 
though I cannot demonstrate it. Nevertheless, 
I always assume and act upon this supposition. 
I trust it. I yield my entire soul and being to it. 

Intuitional faith then lies at the basis of every 
rational act of the soul in practical life. I have 
confidence in my powers of locomotion. I yield 
to that confidence and move. I have faith in my 
power to think and so reason. I have faith in 
others and trust them. All business is tran- 
sacted on a basis of faith. I have faith in the 
deliverances of my own senses, and act upon 
what they bring me. Even in a process of rea- 
soning I have faith in the powers of mind and in 
the process. 

You say you "know an axiom to be true." 
How do you know it to be true ? Did you 
demonstrate it ? No, you believe it. You trust 
it and act upon it. We do not mean that this 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 1 3 

primary yielding of the soul to truth is unintelli- 
gent. It is accompanied by knowledge, but the 
faith element in intuition is fundamental. 

Count faith, if you will, as an intuition — one 
of the original intuitions of the mind ; and this 
granted is it not in a most important sense the 
most fundamental of them all, the one which at 
once acknowledges the validity of all the rest ? 
It is the self-trust of the soul, and not by demon- 
stration, but by immediate acknowledgement and 
surrender. And in this it is no different from 
that supposed higher faith commonly understood 
as such, wherein the soul yields itself to the Infi- 
nite. The infinite within is as great as the infinite 
without. The soul is an infinite to itself, and 
confidence in that self is at the beginning of all 
its processes. 



II. 

FAITH AND REASON. 



"It is remarkable that in Germany almost all the 
writers of note, of all schools of philosophy, nnite in 
regarding belief in God as an immediate act of the soul, 
and rooted in feeling. This is conceded even by the 
Hegelians. * * * Theologians * * * and other philoso- 
phers of various schools, substantially agree in the doc- 
trine that religion originates in an immediate faith, 
and emanates from no empirical source. * * * What 
now is the purport and the force of the several argu- 
ments for the existence of God? We reply that these 
proofs are the different modes in which faith expresses 
itself, and seeks confirmation. In them faith, or the ob- 
ject of faith, is more exactly conceived and defined; 
and in them is found a corroboration, not arbitrary but 
substantial and valuable, of that faith which springs 
from the soul itself. Such proofs, therefore, are neither, 
on the one hand, of themselves sufficient to create and 
sustain faith, nor are they, on the other hand, to be set 
aside as of no weight. ' ' 

— George p. Fisher. 

"Iyife abounds in practical certainties for which no 
very cogent reasons can be given, but which are never- 
theless the foundation of daily life. Our practical trust 
in the uniformity of nature, in one another, in the af- 
fection of friends, in the senses, etc., are examples. 
Numberless logical objections could be raised which 
reduce all of these to matters of probability; but none 
of these things move us. The things which we hold, or 
rather hold us, with deepest conviction are, not the cer- 
tainties of logic, but of life. 1 ' 

Borden P. Bowne. 



CHAPTER II. 
FAITH AND REASON. 



What is then the relation of faith to reason ? 
and what of faith and knowledge ? 

We have seen that faith is not primarily the re- 
sult of a reasoning process, yet it is not contrary 
to reason. It is reasonable when subjected to 
the scrutinizing power of the reasoning process 
or understanding. If we distinguish between 
reason, or ' 'pure reason, ' ' as it is sometimes called, 
and reasoning, or understanding, by which we 
compare and form judgments, then we may say, 
reason gives us faith pure and simple, as a pri- 
mary act of the soul; reasoning may give us con- 
clusions about faith. Faith is not then unintelli- 
gent or unreasonable. It is in fact the most rea- 
sonable act of the soul. It is the universal pos- 
tulate of reason, the background of the under- 
standing and discursive reason, always implicit 
in every intelligent act. 

But does not knowledge precede faith ? Does 
it not discover the truth of intuition first, and 



1 8 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

faith come in subsequently to accept ? We an- 
swer that while faith and knowledge may be dis- 
tinguished in thought, they are scarcely to be 
considered as absolutely separate acts. Faith is 
of course an intelligent act, and there is an ele- 
ment of knowledge implicit in every act of pri- 
mary faith, but the two acts are scarcely to be 
distinguished in time; they are one and the same; 
and the primary act of the soul is, as we have 
seen, in its essential nature, an act of faith rather 
than an act of knowing. The truth carries with 
it its own authoritative vindication without an act 
of the understanding on our part. It flashes 
upon the soul at once, full orbed, complete; the 
soul at once yields its entire being to it. 

Christlieb* has truly said: "The severance of 
the two (faith and knowledge), as mutually ex- 
cluding opposites, indicates a superficial tone of 
thought, for all knowledge is, in the last instance ', 
conditioned by faith; and faith (i. e. an act of be- 
lief) is the preliminary and the medium of every 
act of intelligence. Are you surprised at this 
proposition? The usual rationalistic axiom is 
certainly the reverse of it, namely, that every- 
thing must first be proved and known before it 
can be believed. The superficiality of this axiom 

* "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief." p. 124. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 1 9 

may, however, be readily perceived. Is not every 
act of knowledge based upon an act of faith, 
namely, the belief that we are, and thatw r e think? 
This fact is always presupposed. But on what 
does its certainty depend? On our thinking? 
Can this possibly prove its own actuality ? Would 
not this be to move in a circle, and presuppose 
that which is to be proved ? The certainty of our 
thinking depends simply on an act of belief. 
Just as the eye never sees itself, but only the out- 
ward form of itself, so also the self-knowing of 
the mind is not a self-beholding, but an ideal 
cognizance, a radical though mediated knowl- 
edge, i. e. i scire credendo' (Delitzsch), a knowledge 
mediated by faith. It is by the direct testimony 
of our own minds that we are convinced of the 
fact that we exist, think, wake, dream; and this 
fact neither needs nor is capable of proof; we 
merely believe it. ' ' 

In our discussion thus far we have spoken of 
faith as intuitional. At this point the question 
might naturally arise, May I not also have faith 
in the conclusions of my own processes of rea- 
soning ? We answer yes, but this faith in my 
intellectual conclusions must rest ultimately upon 
intuitional faith as already indicated, faith in self, 
in the power of thought, in the presentations of 



20 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

perception and sensation, and faith finally in the 
validity of the process of reasoning, but here, in 
the last element mentioned, there cannot be that 
positive assurance that is found in intuitional 
faith. Since man is so limited in knowledge, he 
cannot always positively say his reasoning pro- 
cess is absolutely correct, the conclusion valid. 
It is an absolute basis of faith only in so far as 
it can be verified by the axioms of intuitional 
faith, and no farther. Thus far it may be a sure 
ground of faith, and this faith might be called, 
to distinguish it from intuitional faith, Experi- 
ential, or inferential faith. 

But do you not confound knowledge and faith? 
I think not. Knowledge is the product of the 
knowing process, but this process rests upon a 
background of intuitive faith. I demonstrate, 
for example, a proposition in geometry. I say I 
know my conclusion to be correct, and I have 
faith in that knowledge, and trust it for future 
use, without a second demonstration; but that 
conclusion itself was arrived at by a process of 
reasoning, which began with unproved assump- 
tions, or axiomatic truth, to which the mind im- 
plicitly yielded itself by an act of faith. The 
validity of the process itself is also assumed by 
faith. The mind by intuitional faith has confi- 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 21 

detice in itself, assumes its own integrity at every 
step. 

In saying that faith is fundamental we do not 
say that faith and knowledge are antithetical. 
They are not opposites, nor does one destroy the 
the other. They are rather correlates and in- 
separable. The one is never absent from the 
other. But knowledge has been too often exalted 
at the expense of faith and opposition predicated, 
where it really does not exist, and the true value 
of faith obscured. Its fundamental character is 
thus ignored and thrust into the background as 
of relatively less importance. It cannot thus be 
ignored without shipwreck to the whole intel- 
lectual fabric. Faith and knowledge are thus 
the two halves of intuition . Granting this we 
cannot then say that faith is subsequent to or 
beyond reason, or above reason. It is rather 
because faith is below and in reason that it is 
able to transcend reason. 

"We know/' says Sir William Hamilton, 
* ' what rests upon reason ; we believe what rests 
upon authority. But reason itself must rest at 
last upon authority ; for the original data of rea- 
son do not rest upon reason, but are necessarily 
accepted by reason on the authority of what is 
beyond itself. These data are, therefore, in rigid 



22 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

propriety, Beliefs or Trusts. Thus it is that in 
the last resort we must, perforce, philosophically 
admit that belief is the primary condition of 
reason and not reason the ultimate ground of 
faith.' 5 

We do not see that it is necessary to go farther 
with Hamilton in his speculations concerning the 
' * unconditioned " as a basis for the belief in 
God. We are face to face with the conditions of 
that belief already. The ultimate authority is 
the constitution of the soul itself. I am face to 
face with God when J. am face to face with my- 
self. The soul itself is in the nature of an infinite 
to itself, and its constitution is received on trust 
by an immediate act of intuitional faith, with 
its accompaniment of intuitive knowledge. So 
that if the ultimate ground be called ' ' authority ' ' 
or " revelation," it matters not. The soul is an 
authority to itself, and a revelation to itself. Its 
own constitution is the ultimate ground. " Can 
faith then," asks one, "bea source or condition 
of a larger knowledge than the soul at first pos- 
sesses ? " We answer, Why not ? 

Dr. B. F. Cocker, in commenting on Hamil- 
ton, remarks : " Whilst denying that the infinite 
can be known, Hamilton tells us he is ' far from 
denying that it is, must, and ought to be believed.' 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 23 

1 We must believe in the infinity of God.' 'Faith, 
belief — is the organ by which we apprehend what 
is beyond knowledge.' We heartily assent to 
the doctrine that the Infinite Being is the object 
of faith, but we earnestly deny that the Infinite 
Being is not an object of knowledge. May not 
knowledge be grounded upon faith, and does not 
faith imply knowledge ? Can we not obtain 
knowledge through faith ? Is not the faith in 
the Infinite Being implied in our knowledge of 
infinite existence ? If so, then God as the infinite 
and perfect, God as the unconditioned cause, is 
not absolutely ' the unknown.' "* 

Faith and reason then are not to be divorced, 
as mutually exclusive opposites. God hath joined 
them together. Let us not vainly attempt to put 
them asunder. The true synthesis of faith and 
reason is within the soul itself. We intuitively 
believe and at the same time intuitively know. 

"^Christianity and Greek Philosophy. P. 246. 



III. 

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 



" Now there is a fact in nature, I cannot explain it nor 
can you, that a piece of steel touched by a magnet trem- 
bles as it varies ; suspend it on a pivot, and it becomes a 
needle and turns toward the pole. Why it turns I can- 
not tell. I say it is magnetism ; it is influenced by the 
magnetic current. What makes that current, how it is 
developed and constituted I know not. Some of its 
facts I can see, and yet I will risk my life and the life of 
my friends and all I have on the certainty that every- 
where and under all circumstances, when left free from 
other influences, that needle will turn towards the pole. 
I go on the sea and the mariner may guide the ship by 
the sun and stars when visible ; but there comes a time 
when the sun and stars are invisible and the sun is not 
seen for days. There is a wild waste of billows all 
around and the tempests howl, and yet in the midst of 
that darkness and storm and threatened danger, the eye 
is kept on that needle, and believing that it points north- 
ward and that there is a north, though I cannot see it, 
and while there may be rocks on the one hand and de- 
struction on the other I go safely through, because I 
trust in the unseen. Great journeys are accomplished 
and great deeds are performed in the same manner. " 

— Bishop Simpson. 



CHAPTER III. 
FAITH AND SCIENCE. 



" Reason is the soul's left hand. Faith her right." 

— Donne. 

It has been popular in some quarters to oppose 
science to faith, but this seems to me a strange 
inconsistency in the scientist, for if he will take 
the pains to scientifically investigate the pro- 
cesses of his own mental procedure, as he does 
the phenomena of nature, he cannot fail to per- 
ceive that faith lies at the foundation of all his 
investigations. No process is begun without 
faith. He assumes first of all that nature, which 
he proposes to investigate, is rational in its 
essence. He assumes and believes and acts upon 
the assumption that nature being constituted ac- 
cording to rational laws is knowable by his own 
reason, though its true meaning may at present 
be veiled and obscure. He takes no step in 
investigation without implicit faith in previous 
assumptions to which he voluntarily yields his 



28 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

whole being and on which he stakes all results. 
They are the ultimates of argument beyond which 
he will not go, and yet ,he sometimes foolishly 
has the hardihood to affirm that he accepts noth- 
ing except that which he has proved satisfactory 
to his own reason ; verily, consistency is a jewel. 
The fundamental nature of faith is being more 
fully recognized by the keenest philosophical 
minds, and the conviction is deepening that it is 
not to be relegated to the religious sphere alone, 
but that our entire intellectual life demands it, 
and that psychology, metaphysics, natural science 
and even logic must account with faith before 
these boasted philosophies can write ' ' finis ' ' to 
their conclusions. These pertinent words may 
be cited in testimony : * ' ' There is an element 
of faith and volition latent in all our theorizing. 
Where we cannot prove we believe. Where we 
cannot demonstrate we choose sides. This ele- 
ment of faith cannot be escaped in any field of 
thought, and without it the mind is helpless and 
dumb. Oversight of this fact has led to bound- 
less verbal haggling and barren logic-chopping, 
in which it would be hard to say whether the 
affirmative or the negative be the more confused. 

*B. P. Bowne, " Philosophy of Theism." Preface, 
p. in. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 29 

Absurd demands for ' proof ' have been met by- 
absurd ' proofs.' " 

f " In every act of learning," says Christlieb, 
" must not a believing be presupposed, some 
belief in the authority of the teacher and in the 
truth of that which is taught ? He who does not 
start with this belief will never learn anything. 
And does not all philosophizing depend on faith. 
If a philosopher did not believe in the wisdom 
with which the world is filled he cannot be a 
lover of wisdom. When a philosopher presumes 
to look down on faith it is a proof that he does 
not know on what ground he himself is standing. 
And in every single act of cognition does not 
belief form a connecting link necessary to its 
completion ? In every cognition of a sensible 
object the first decisive step is the sensuous per- 
ception ; the second, often so momentary as to 
be scarcely perceptible, is the inward affirmation 
of this perception the belief in and acknowledge- 
ment of the testimony of the senses ; then, and 
not till then, follows the logical conclusion. It 
is just so with intellectual cognitions directed by 
the supersensuous. In this, also, the first point 
is an inward intellectual perception, the second 
an assent to or affirmation of it whereupon fol- 

t M Modern Doubt and Christian Belief." p. 125. 



30 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

lows the cognition properly so called. From 
this you see that faith is really a preliminary and 
a medium of all cognizance, and that all know- 
ing is conditioned by an act of believing. He 
zvho believes nothing knows ?iothing. ' ' 

Axiomatic postulates of intuitional faith ap- 
pear almost everywhere in, or can be easily de- 
duced from, speculative philosophy, scientific 
studies, and in all branches of intellectual re- 
search. For example turn to page 1 15 of Bowne's 
"Philosophy of Theism." In the midst of an 
argument for human freedom, — as against a the- 
ory of necessity, to which the author proves that 
Atheism must be reduced, — appears this sen- 
tence, "On the one hand we must admit that our 
faculties are made for truth, and that one cannot 
by volition change truth. On the other, we can- 
not allow that we are shut up by necessity to er- 
ror, as then our faculties would be essentially 
untrustworthy." "Our faculties are made for 
truth." This postulate, fundamental and un- 
demonstrated, lies at the core of the argument. 
Upon this foundation the argument is based. 
True, it is verified by logic and excursive reason, 
turn which way you will, yet was it not implic- 
itly present in all processes of reasoning, as- 
sumed, trusted in, believed? Is not the soul sur- 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 3 1 

rendered to this axiom by a simple act of intui- 
tive faith? 

Inductive philosophy is based upon presuppo- 
sitions of faith. Suppose the scientist discovers a 
new fact in nature, which is as yet unclassified. 
He proceeds to study with a view to classifica- 
tion. But this very procedure implies that he 
has an underlying faith in the reasonableness of 
the universe. He believes in a universe of sys- 
tem and law, and that this particular fact has a 
place in that system. He then proceeds by an- 
alysis and comparison to classify this fact, or to 
give it a place in his system of knowledge. He 
now has a knowledge concerning this fact, which 
becomes a basis of faith for future use. 

It is at once apparent that it will be impossible 
to harmonize our theory of faith with some mod- 
ern theories of evolution and agnosticism, of 
which Mr. Herbert Spencer is the chief exponent 
and high priest. Indeed we believe a true psy- 
chology of faith must aid in demolishing these 
brilliant but illogical theories. In attempting to 
show that intuition is the result of experience 
Mr. Spencer inconsistently pursues a course of 
reasoning which must prove disastrous to his the- 
ory, for he everywhere employs as presupposi- 
tions and assumed postulates those very intu- 



32 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

itions, which he holds emerge only as the result 
of experience . The second chapter of his Psy- 
chology is entitled, "The Universal Postulate." 
This postulate is stated as follows: "A belief 
which is proved by the inconceivableness of its 
negation to invariably exist is true." This pre- 
supposition of intuitional faith is the foundation 
of an argument by which the author tries to prove 
that intuition is the outcome of experience. One 
is naturally led to inquire, How can this univer- 
sal postulate, which is essential to every step of 
the process, be at the same time the result of that 



process r 



?* 



*J. Iverach, "The Ethics of Evolution Examined." 
p. 7, "Present Day Tracts," Vol. VIII. 



IV. 
CONCERNING A 

FAITH-FACULTY. 



4 ' Man has a distinct faculty of religious knowledge 
only in the sense in which he has a distinct faculty of 
mathematical, ethical or aesthetic knowledge." 

Samuei, Harris. 

"When we come to the deepest questions of thought 
we always come upon impenetrable mystery. We have 
to affirm facts whose possibility we cannot construe. 

* * * * j n truth, all science and all thought are full 
of what has been called limit-notions; that is, notions 
which the facts force upon us, and which are perfectly 
clear from the side of the facts, but which from the 
farther iside are lost in difficulty and mystery. * * 

* * We have no expectation of clearing up all the 
puzzles of metaphysics. We simply hope to show that 
without a theistic faith we must stand as dumb and help- 
less before the deeper questions of thought and life as a 
Papuan or Patagonian before an eclipse." 

— Borden p. Bowne. 



CHAPTER IV. 
CONCERNING A FAITH-FACULTY. 



We might write this chapter in a single sen- 
tence, as a certain scientific writer, describing 
the fauna of Iceland, compressed his chapter on 
snakes into the six words, " There are no snakes 
in Iceland." 

The soul cannot be divided off into faculties. 
It acts as a whole. For convenience in specula- 
tion we distinguish knowing, feeling, willing, 
etc., and speak of these activities as faculties, but 
in fact these elements are more or less implic- 
itly present in every intelligent act of the soul, 
be it an act of faith, volition or knowledge. It 
would be better to consider these various acts of 
intelligence as functions of the soul, rather than 
to call them faculties, since the latter term car- 
ries with it the objectionable idea of partition. 
There is an element of feeling faith and volition 
in all knowledge.* " Psychology," says Dr. 

* Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 124. 



36 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

Bowne,* "long ago discovered that nothing is 
explained by reference to a faculty; since the fac- 
ulty itself is always and only an abstraction from 
the facts for whose explanation it is invoked or 
invented. ' } 

Certain religionists, contending for faith as 
against unbelief, have sometimes unwittingly 
fallen into the ambush laid for them by their en- 
emies, and eventually weakened the cause they 
would sustain, by contending for a faith faculty. 
They attempt to bolster up the argument by an 
appeal to Scripture, as "Spiritual things are spir- 
itually discerned,' ' and the like, implying that 
unbelieving minds have no right to pass upon 
matters of religious faith, inasmuch as they do 
not possess this spiritual faculty, or; at least, it 
is in them rudimentary and undeveloped, and 
hence untrustworthy. While there is a shade of 
truth in all this, yet there is a fundamental error 
as to the nature of faith, which must bring logi- 
cal shipwreck to the beloved argument. 

Allowing that the religionist has a faith fac- 
ulty or a religious consciousness, as distinguished 
from the faculties and consciousness by which he 
knows other things and this additional faculty is 
supernaturally imposed, then the adversary may 

* Philosophy of Theism, p. 4. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 37 

at once reply: "If this be so, the product of this 
so-called supernatural consciousness cannot pos- 
sibly have the character of true knowledge. It 
has no significance whatever, when brought un- 
der the ordinary processes of knowing, by which 
I am able to test truth. It is outside the range 
of my consciousness, and hence of my responsi- 
bility. It is to me, — nothing. The outcome is 
therefore agnosticism, pure and simple," and the 
discomfitted religionist is left in the dark, and 
without pity, since he himself has extinguished 
the light. 

The absurdity of this argument, when stripped 
of verbiage, and reduced to the concrete of bar- 
ren logic, is quite apparent. The would-be faith - 
ist says to the unbeliever: " Let me demonstrate 
to you the truth of religion. Of course you do 
not understand it now, and cannot understand it 
when I prove it to you, because you have not the 
faith faculty which I have. You must accept it 
because I say so." Alas, for the reasonableness 
of faith, when it becomes the faith of unreason. 

"The recognition of a faith faculty," says Pro- 
fessor Harris of Yale, "as the distinctive organ 
oi religious knowledge is inadmissible. The very 
conception of a faculty is false and misleading. 
The mind no more has faculties than oxygen or 



38 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

electricity. The mind in its indivisible oneness 
reveals itself in acts and processes which we can 
note and classify. From this misconception of 
the mind as divided into faculties the doctrine of 
a faith faculty derives its chief significance.' ' * 

* Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 77. 



V. 

FAITH AND VOLITION. 



Faith is "that mental act in which my whole spiritual 
being, my knowing, feeling and willing, combine in 
uniting themselves with the object of faith." 

— IyUTHARDT. 

"Ye will not come to me," Alas! the cry 
Of Him who bled to save; whose life outpoured, 
His love so vast did prove, for man in sin, 
And shame, and discord, blinded, wandering far 
From home, and peace, and joy, and rest, and God, — 
"Ye will not come." 

Will not, — will not come? While life is promised? 
The King Himself His word has pledged, and sworn 
Eternal life shall be to him who wills, f 
And knowledge vast of hidden mystery, * 
Unfolding grand; and shall I hear at last, — 
"Ye will not come"? 

Nay, but I yield; I will, I will now come. 
Abounding life is mine; I taste the bliss 
Supernal of the broader view. I know. 
The doctrine grand my soul inspires, and swells 
With heaven's rapture. O Christ, my King, — 
I will. I come. 

tJohn v:40. 
* John vii : 17. 



CHAPTER V. 
FAITH AND VOLITION. 



4 'I will arise and go to my father.'' 

Faith is volitional. It is an energy put forth 
by the soul. Every such energy must imply 
volition. To superficial thought it has some- 
times appeared as if the soul were rather in a 
state of passivity than activity in its beliefs, and 
hence has arisen the dangerous doctrine held by 
some of irresponsibility for beliefs. 

This has arisen either from a careless or su- 
perficial thinking, a want of seriousness both 
logically and morally; or from a wrong heart, 
hostile to truth, and seeking through intellectual 
quibbles, an excuse for moral obliquity and infi- 
delity. 

If being must yield itself by inner or outer 
compulsion to apparent truth, then man is no 
longer free, but the victim of stern necessity. In 
every conscious experience the soul is essentially 
active, and every activity is at foundation a de- 



42 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

termination of will. Without this fundamental 
postulate identity and conscious personality must 
disappear, or be termed the resultant of necessity. 

In acts of sensation, receptivity, conscious 
meditation and the like, the volitional element 
may not be prominent; it is obscured by the viv- 
idness of the impressions by which the mind is 
preoccupied, yet a little introspection will reveal 
that the condition or act is self determined and 
volitional at root, and not a necessary outcome 
of physical causes, environment, or preceding 
states. 

In a scheme of necessity, faith, with every 
mental act and conscious state, is reduced to the 
dead level of mechanism and truth and error are 
without meaning. * 

If man were perfect both morally and intel- 
lectually he would be free from consequent error, 
but being subject to limitations he is also subject 
to error. Errors of judgment and faith are often 
corrected by experience. A faith may therefore be 
sincere yet erroneous. At the same time errors 
of faith bring injury to being. 

A study of the psychology of childhood will 
we think confirm the truth of this position. In 
the intuitive beliefs regarding space and time, 

*B. P. Bowne, Philosophy of Theism, p 112. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 43 

and the laws of nature in their effects upon being, 
this truth will be conspicuous, and errors here 
are more quickly corrected. Yet we think the 
same law will hold in the realm of morals, though 
perhaps not at first so apparent. 

That erroneous faith may be corrected by ex- 
perience may be illustrated from nature. God in 
nature is a stern corrector. The child apparently 
believes the flame to be a pretty plaything. Act- 
ing upon this belief, he stretches forth his hand 
to take the flame, but immediately has learned 
his lesson. His erroneous faith is corrected. He 
had erroneous faith precedent to a certain knowl- 
edge, he now has knowledge and a faith corrected 
by experience. In the meantime he has been 
held to strict accountability and responsibility 
for his beliefs. Erroneous faith has resulted in 
inevitable injury to being. 

If now the child repeats the act by exercise of 
his freedom, it is simply a case of willful refusal 
to yield being to apparent truth, and this is un- 
belief, or THE ANTITHESIS OF FAITH. This 
unbelief must bring disaster to being. What the 
child gains therefore in knowledge adds to his 
responsibility. The laws of the Creator grind 
on irresistibly. He who has chosen to disobey 
them, and put himself out of harmony with 



44 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

them, receives the consequence, not disaster to 
the laws; or, rather, — to use a preferable term, — 
to God in his activity, but to himself, in injury to 
his own being. 

So the child learns by experience valuable les- 
sons, which, if he be tractable, may correct his 
erroneous faith, set him right with offended 
Deity, and restore in a measure the lost harmony, 
to the extent at least, that he does not voluntarily 
repeat the same error. If he does repeat it, he 
voluntarily puts himself into hostility to God in 
nature which is unbelief. 

Viewed in this light we see that in a sense there 
may be a faith that precedes knowledge, but it is 
not, though sincere, a true faith. It however 
leads to knowledge, which becomes in turn a 
ground of true faith. We see then the recipro- 
cal value of faith and knowledge in practical life, 
and their inseparable character. 

Man is but a child of larger growth, subject to 
error in faith and practice, and consequent disor- 
der to being. His beliefs may be the outcome of 
experience, or they may arise from various causes 
which bring with them consequent error. They 
may be what are termed * "rational," or "irra- 
tional," the consequence of ignorance, wrong ed- 
ucation, habit, prejudice, inherent and inherited. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 45 

He nevertheless yields to these faiths of igno- 
rance, until larger knowledge shall increase his 
responsibility, and either correct his faith, or 
confirm him in willful unbelief or disobedience. 
A true faith is therefore known by its effects 
upon being. It is the complement of being. 
There comes with true faith a soul rest and satis- 
faction, which needs no further proof; it is its 
own vindication. 



VI. 
FAITH AND RELIGION. 



"Because belief in divinity springs spontaneously out 
of the inmost personality of man, it must be persistent 
in human history, and its suppression by speculative 
skepticism can be only local and temporary. For this 
belief exists before physical science, philosophical in- 
vestigation or theological thought; and though it can be 
verified by these and shown to be a reasonable belief, 
yet it exists spontaneously independent of them. In 
fact it is the beliefs, welling up spontaneously in our 
very constitution and living in the feelings and will as 
well as the intellect, which call forth in their defense 
the devotedness of self-sacrificing love. An opinion 
held merely as a result of argument or a balancing of 
evidence is not secure. A new fact, a new argument, a 
suggestion of doubt from one whose opinion has weight, 
may shake it and cause it to fall. If religious belief is 
to rule our lives, if it is to be the motive that impels 
and the standard by which we judge our actions, if it is 
to demand self-devotedness and self-sacrifice and the 
martyr-spirit in allegiance to it, it must be more than 
an opinion founded on a balance of arguments and evi- 
dence, it must spring from our constitution as personal, 
it must live as a real communion with God, a real expe- 
rience of His presence and His love. But when thus 
rooted in the personality and living in the spirit's life, it 
persists in the face of scientific and philosophical specu- 
lation, and if temporarily suppressed returns with 
power." 

'One day they will return in shining forms, 
These fair embassadors of the Infinite; 
And when they come, the rosy-fingered dawn 
Will show the nothingness of churlish science, 
Feigning void heavens above a lawless world. ' ' ' 

Samuei, Harris. 



CHAPTER VI. 
FAITH AND RELIGION. 



* 'Without faith it is impossible to please Him." — 
Heb. xi : 6. 

When we come to the question of morals and 
religion, there will be no necessity for devising 
any new theory of faith or of knowledge, but the 
principles already laid down will apply. Upon 
this foundation may be developed that true syn- 
thesis of faith and reason which is the hope of 
speculative thought. 

Professor Harris, arguing for a Theistic con- 
ception of the universe grounded in reason, con- 
tends that the primitive conceptions of the mind 
should be called knowledge rather than faith. 
He does this in order to avoid the objection 
already met of the disastrous results of admitting 
a faith-faculty. We contend that there is an ele- 
ment both of knowledge and of faith in our 
primary intuitions. They are intuitively known 
and voluntary submission is yielded to them in 
the same act, but it seems to us the more promi- 



50 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

nent feature in primitive knowledge, — if the term 
be preferred, — is the act of faith, or submission 
to apparent truth. 

The logical order might be stated as follows: 
(i) Truth presented. (2) Truth acknowledged 
as such. (3) Soul-submission. But logic is an 
after-thought, and includes a time element, which 
is scarcely recognized in intuitive faith, and is 
really not the most important feature of the dis- 
cussion. 

We agree with Professor Harris when he says: 
"So far as the word faith is used to denote all 
primitive knowledge it is true that faith precedes 
intelligence or reflective knowledge. But only 
in this sense is the maxim admissible as true." * 
We believe it true in this sense, and prefer the 
term intuitional faith. We believe also in a 
faith subsequent to intuition, based upon reason 
and experience, and this faith subsequent is the 
more important factor perhaps for consideration, 
when we come to the study of man as moral and 
religious, though intuitive faith must be, as 
shown in the preceding discussion, the starting 
point. We believe these principles will hold 
good in morals and religion. 

It is doubtless true that confusion in thought 

* The Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 76. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 5 1 

has often arisen through confusion in nomencla- 
ture. Keeping in mind therefore the distinction 
already made, and the interchangeable character 
of the terms "intuitive faith" and "primitive 
knowledge," we may perhaps avoid confusion of 
thought in our study of faith and religion. We 
may also assent to the position of professor Har- 
ris when he says: "Therefore in the application 
of the terms faith and belief they should be used 
interchangably with intuitive, self-evident, prim- 
itive knowledge and similar designations; thus 
showing that they mean nothing less than knowl- 
edge and are applied alike to primitive knowl- 
edge in every form, whether presentative or rep- 
resentative, whether the intuition of the outward 
world, or of ourselves in our mental operations, 
or of universal principles, or of the existence of 
absolute unconditioned being. ' ' 

"It follows that the maxim that faith precedes 
intelligence has no peculiar application to relig- 
ious knowledge. This like all other knowledge 
begins as primitive, implicit, spontaneous knowl- 
edge. This fact does not disparage the reality of 
religious knowledge any more than of all other 
knowledge; for all knowledge begins in the same 
way. Physical science begins in faith, as really 
as theology. If we choose to call the primitive, 



52 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

implicit religious knowledge faith, our giving 
it that name does not change its character as 
knowledge, nor distinguish it as different in this 
respect from other knowledge." * 

With this understanding, if one should insist 
that faith is a part, or function of reason, we 
would not care to contend with him. We would 
accept the proposition and argue with him for 
the rationality of faith. A mere strife about 
words, when we mean the same thing, is of little 
profit. 

The intuitions of morals and religion are as 
fundamental, as persistent and abiding, as those 
of space, time, and the axiomatic truths of intu- 
itive reason, and they must be reckoned with in 
the same way. 

Man was always religious. We think the idea 
of making religion the result of reflective thought 
is generally losing ground, though it has had 
some distinguished advocates. We believe with 
Dr. Bowne, "Man was religious before he was a 
philosopher. ' ' We can scarcely accept with 
Pfleiderer the theory that religion was, with prim- 
itive man, a development from reflection upon 
external nature, f though able reasons are given 

* Philosophical Basis of Theism, p. 77. 

t Philosophy of Religion, p. 22. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 53 

for it. Whether we hold with Pfieiderer that the 
primitive impulse of worship roots in the idea of 
communion with God rather than sacrifice, we 
may affirm this, whatever theory we accept as to 
the origin of the idea of God and of religion, that 
the primitive act, the most fundamental of all, in 
any case, was an act of faith, natural in the sense 
of being constitutional. 

The God-idea and the moral feeling of obliga- 
tion are intuitive beliefs of the soul. No race 
has been found destitute of some idea of God, or 
of some form of religiousness, by which man 
attempts to unite himself with God. 

The idea of God and religion may have been, 
as some contend, a development, an evolution, 
and this is doubtless in a sense true. Man has 
gained a providential knowledge of God through 
the development and unfolding of his own his- 
tory, and also by his own reflection upon nature. 
There has been an evolution of the God idea 
together with the development of man himself, 
and growth in the knowledge of God has cor- 
rected errors in faith just as in nature. But if 
there has been a development there must have 
been an original germ to develop. This germ 
may have been somewhat nebulous as compared 
with the present conception of Deity. It may 



54 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

have fallen far short of the idea of Absolute 
Wisdom and Goodness, yet we conceive it must 
have contained at least the idea of Supernatural- 
ness and Power. Given immediately with this 
idea comes the instinctive impulse towards com- 
munion or propitiation of that power. 

Man accepts and yields himself to these deliv- 
erances of primitive consciousness at once by an 
act of faith. The case for faith is quite as clear, 
if you conceive the idea of God and religion as a 
pure act of revelation to an intelligent mind on 
the part of the Supernatural, after Man's creation. 
His soul by constitution corresponds to it, and 
by faith accepts it, not by demonstration. At 
once with the idea of the Supernatural power 
comes the confidence or faith in that idea or feel- 
ing, and at the same time, comes also the sense 
of obligation, at least of relation of man to that 
Supernatural, and also confidence, or faith in the 
deliverances of consciousness. 

Man does not demonstrate God, for in all his 
demonstrations the idea of God is presupposed. 
His reasonings only develop more fully the fit- 
ness of the God-idea to human constitution and 
needs. The best he can do by demonstration is 
to point out a pre-existent harmony, and make 
more clear the points of contact between the 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 55 

Divine and human. Without this background 
in human consciousness of the God-idea, finite 
reason itself is impossible. Atheism is an after- 
thought, arising from unbelief and rebellion, or a 
refusal to yield being in obedience to the God- 
idea given in intuition. Here is manifest the 
disturbing power of sin, of which we will speak 
hereafter. "Human thought must recognize 
God just as certainly as itself and the world . 
As a modern apologist says: 'We cannot, in any 
way, get rid of the idea.' We do not merely 
believe that there is a God, but we know in vir- 
tue of an ideal cognition consisting in an imme- 
diate act of faith in human consciousness. And 
this very fact that a direct certainty of god 
exists in our mind per SE is the most simple 
refutation of Atheism . " * 

It will again be evident at this point that it 
will be impossible to harmonize our theory with 
Spencer's agnosticism, except insofar as Mr. 
Spencer is inconsistent with his own fundamental 
position. In a philosophy of inconsistencies 
such as his, we must expect to find some mixture 
of truth. Mr. Spencer says: "We are obliged 
to regard every phenomena as a manifestation of 

*Christlieb, "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, 
p. 141. 



56 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

some power; phenomenon being, so far as we can 
ascertain, unlimited, we are obliged to regard this 
power as omnipresent: and criticism teaches us 
that it is wholly incomprehensible." 

Again, ''Though the absolute cannot in any 
manner or degree be known, in the strict sense 
of knowing, yet we find its positive existence is 
a necessary datum of consciousness; so long as 
consciousness continues, we cannot for an instant 
rid ourselves of this datum; and thus the belief 
w r hich this datum constitutes has a higher war- 
rant than any other whatever." * 

Spencer's "Criticism" makes the Absolute 
"incomprehensible." Spencer's intuitive faith 
declares: (i) "Phenomena" must be "manifesta- 
tion of power." (2) "We are obliged to regard 
this power as omnipresent." (3) "Its positive 
existence is a necessary datum of consciousness." 
(4) "The belief which this datum constitutes has 
a higher warrant than any other whatever." 

We are led to ask, — Why should Mr. Spencer 
indulge in "criticism" at all, when his intuitive 
faith is at the same time so doggedly persistent, 
as to entirely nullify the results of that boasted 
criticism ? We find here a strong argument for 
our position as to the persistency of intuitive 

* First Principles, Section 27. pp. 99. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 57 

faith. It is evident that the God-idea forms an 
ever present background to all Spencer's criti- 
cism. The Absolute is "power," "omnipres- 
ent," ,4 A NECESSARY DATUM OF CONSCIOUS- 
NESS," Of "HIGHEST POSSIBLE WARRANT." We 

are willing to accept this deliverance of faith, for 
here is conceded the very point for which we 
contend. We prefer Mr. Spencer's faith to his 

"criticism." 



VII. 
FAITH AND SIN. 



"Sometimes there opens to us the picture of this 
thing that we might be, and then there are truly the 
trial moments of our life. Then we lift up ourselves 
and claim our liberty, or, dastardly and cowardly, slink 
back into the sluggish imprisonment in which we have 
been living. * * * * It seems to me, my friends, 
that all this great picture of the liberty into which 
Christ sets man, in the first place does one thing which 
we are longing to see done in the world. It takes away 
the glamour and the splendor from sin. It breaks that 
spell by which men think that the evil thing is the glo- 
rious thing. If the evil thing be that which Christ has 
told us that the evil thing is — which I have no time to 
tell you now — if every sin that you do is not simply a 
stain upon your soul, but is keeping you out from some 
great and splendid thing which you might do, then is 
there any sort of splendor and glory about sin ? * * * 

* * To get rid of the glamour of sin, to get rid of 
the idea that it is a glorious thing to be dissipated instead 
of being concentrated to duty, to get rid of the idea 
that to be drunken and to be lustful are true and noble 
expressions of our abounding human life, to get rid of 
any idea that sin is aught but imprisonment, is to make 
those who come after us, and to make ourselves in what 
of life is left for us, gloriously ambitious for the free- 
dom of purity, for a full entrance into that life over 
which sin has no dominion. ' ' 

—Philips Brooks. 



CHAPTER VII. 
FAITH AND SIN. 



A true philosophy, to be scientifically accurate, 
must deal with all the facts. Sin is a fact which 
concerns man's moral nature and must not be ig- 
nored. Some philosophers have justly laid them- 
selves open to the criticism of incompleteness and 
special pleading by failing to give this important 
fact its due importance. 

The universal fact of sin and temptation to 
wrong-doing is of more importance, perhaps, 
than the question as to the origin of sin, but the 
beginning of sin in the world as held by tradition 
among people, and as it is recorded in Sacred 
Scriptures, fully corroborates, we think, our 
fundamental position. 

We find the first sin to be an act of disobedi- 
ence, growing out of man's freedom, of choice. 
As we found the act of disobedience in the child 
playing with fire brought injury to being, so the 
moral act of disobedience to God brought injury 



62 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

to the moral being. This injury to being both 
in nature and morals arising from disobedience 
can never be repaired by man. No man has 
power to cure a burn or mend a broken limb. 
Neither has he power to mend a broken moral 
law. 

We might argue from the fact that God in 
nature has provided a remedy for burns, bruises, 
and physical ailments, He would also, in con- 
sistency with Himself, provide a remedy for 
man's injury to himself by moral transgression. 
Nevertheless man must suffer both in the physi- 
cal and moral nature for his unbelief. The body 
is never the same after an injury that it was be- 
fore. The soul after moral transgression can 
never be what it was before. It can never by 
any act of its own replace the circumstances 
which existed before its fall. If there is no 
supernatural remedy his case is forever hopeless. 

The child suffers for doing that which is nat- 
urally forbidden. Man in the first transgression 
suffers for doing by freedom of choice that which 
is morally forbidden. Before the transgression 
he was in perfect harmony with God; after it he 
is out of harmony, and can never by his own 
act restore harmony. Before transgression his 
every act was an act of faith. He yielded his 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 63 

being implicitly and readily to God's laws, as 
intuitively presented, without a thought of dem- 
onstrating their reasonableness, or proving them. 
He received them as authority intuitively recog- 
nized, and yielded himself to them by faith. 
Then came the questioning from without, the 
suggested doubt of the intuitition of authority 
and wisdom, then followed the act of unbelief, 
or antithesis of faith, and, following this, came 
the inevitable disaster to being, "the fall." 

Undisturbed by the influence of sin the faith 
of man would be as the faith of primitive man 
was, and as the faith of the child is, a spontane- 
ous, unquestioning surrender of being to the 
Absolute, as revealed in thought, or in nature, or 
in special providence, or whenever man comes in 
contact with it. 

The child-faith, therefore, with its implicit, 
trusting, yielding, undoubting confidence, Phil- 
osophy, as well as Scripture, declares to be the 
ideal of faith for the race. Were it not for the 
disturbing power of sin, would not this ideal be 
realized ? would there not be as implicit faith in 
God among men as there is implicit faith in the 
primitive intuitions of space and time ? 



VIII. 
FAITH AND REVELATION. 



"If faith with reason never doth advise, 
Nor yet tradition leads her, she is then 

From heaven inspired; and secretly grows wise 
Above the schools, we know not how or when." 

* * ■* * * 

"Faith lights us through the dark to Deity.' ' 

— Davenant. 

"Religion is the true philosophy? 

Faith is the last great link 'twixt God and man." 

—Bigg. 

"For therein is the righteousness of God revealed 
from faith to faith.' ■ 

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of 
the world are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made, even his eternal power and God- 
head." — Paui,. 

"His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might 
Be wrong ; his life, I'm sure, was in the right." 

— Cowxey. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
FAITH AND REVELATION. 



From the point of view already gained, we see 
that it is antecedently probable, that from the 
side of the Supernatural, there will be provided 
a remedy for the evils of unbelief, and a plan for 
the restoration of harmony between God and 
man. 

Man is free. We need not discuss that free- 
dom. We take it for granted. It is a funda- 
mental datum of intuitional faith. It being prob- 
able that God will provide a remedy, it must be 
addressed to man's freedom, or formed in refer- 
ence to that freedom. It cannot be superimposed 
as a necessity. It must be accepted by man, and 
this acceptance must be by an act of faith or vol- 
untary submission to a plan authoritatively stated 
and addressed to man's intuitive faith. The 
harmony must be restored precisely at the point 
where it was broken; faith must take the place of 



68 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

unbelief, and the soul must yield itself anew by- 
voluntary submission to its God. 

The antecedent probability of a revelation may 
be illustrated by referring again to child faith. 
The burn which the child receives is in the nature 
of a revelation to him out of that which was be- 
fore beyond and above him. The cure effected 
by nature is also to him a revelation. If he 
choose to reject the cure, he may by unbelief, 
interfere with the progress of it, but must reap 
continual disaster to being, but if he accept by 
faith the remedy the revelation becomes to the 
child a corrective of knowledge, and a basis of 
larger faith. 

It must be remembered that in the realm of 
spiritual and moral affairs the sphere of man's 
freedom is apparently widened, and hence the 
greater power of sin and temptation, when once 
an act of unbelief has misguided the soul, never- 
theless, the analogy from nature, though partial, 
holds. Harmony is lost by unbelief; injury fol- 
lows; a remedy is supernaturally provided, ad- 
dressed to freedom; harmony can then alone be 
restored by faith, or soul-surrender. 

Why then, you inquire, are not all men at 
once restored to harmony with God as readily as 
a child's finger is healed when cut ? We answer 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 69 

from the effects of sin on the being of man, from 
education, inheritance, and wilfulness, — from the 
persistency of unbelief supported by sin. "Ye 
will not come unto me that ye might have life. ' ' * 

What of the restoration and salvation of one 
who never knew of the Christian revelation ? We 
answer in the words of Scripture: f "God is no 
respecter of persons: but in every nation he that 
feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is ac- 
cepted with him." 

The devout heathen will most surely be saved. 
If his faith be sincere even though erroneous, he 
by it yields himself in his entire being to the 
supernatural as he knows it, and it is anteced- 
ently probable from nature that God will in some 
form make to him a revelation, which shall in- 
crease his knowledge and correct his faith, even 
as in the case of Cornelius. § We see at once the 
obligation resting upon those who have the light 
of sending it with all speed to those who have it 
not, for this is God's method of enlightening the 
world. 

* John v : 40. 

t Acts x 134 35. 
\ Acts x: 34, 35. 



IX. 
FAITH AND SCRIPTURE. 



* 'Faith enters in through the soul that does a noble 
deed, and in the coming in of that faith the higher deed 
becomes possible to him. Hear the words that Jesus 
said, words that our age must take to itself until it shall 
be wiser than it is to-day: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God.' 'If any man will do His will 
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.' 
Ponder these words, my friends. See how reasonable 
they are. See how important they are. See how 
they have the secret of your own life, of what it is 
to do, of what it is to be, forever and ever sealed up 
in them. These two things, I am sure are true with 
regard to the method of belief — that no man can ever 
go forward to a higher belief until he is true to the 
faith which he already holds. Be the noblest man 
that your faith, poor and weak and imperfect as it 
is, can make you to be. Live up to your present growth, 
your present faith. So, and so only, as you take the 
next straight step forward, as you stand strong where 
you are now, so only can you think the curtain will 
draw back and there will be revealed to you what lies 
beyond. And then live in your positives and not in your 
negatives. I am tired of asking man what his religious 
faith is and having him tell me what he don't believe. 
* * * * If j as ked a man where he was going and 
he told me he was not going to Washington, what could 
I know about where he was going? He would not go 
anywhere so long as he simply rested in that mere neg- 
ative. Be done with saying what you don't believe, and 
find somewhere or other the truest, divinest thing to 
your soul that you do believe to-day, and work that out: 
work it out in all the action and consecration of the soul 
in the doing of your work. This I take to be the real 
freedom of Christian thought — when the man goes for- 
ward always into a fuller belief as he becomes obedient 
to that which he already holds." 

-Philips Brooks. 



CHAPTER IX. 
FAITH AND SCRIPTURE. 



A thorough exegesis of Scripture would be of 
deep interest. Space will allow us to examine 
but a few salient points. So far as our examina- 
tion has gone we find our position as to the nat- 
ure of faith fully corroborated. 

We have seen the antecedent probability of a 
revelation from God to man in the moral world. 
Our next inquiry would be, what may we expect 
as to the character of that revelation. Sin has 
left man in a state of ignorance, and erroneous 
beliefs concerning righteousness, and a will in- 
clined to evil, yet still possessing the fundamen- 
tal intuitions of God, obligation, right, wrong, 
etc. , to which a revelation must be and is directed. 
The presence of these intuitions and the native 
longing of the soul after God argues the satis- 
faction of this nature in man by a revelation from 
God. Man is conscious of his own distempered 
condition and of a hunger after God, but knows 



74 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

not how to return. The pattern of right moral 
character for which he strives has been lost. If 
restored the perfect pattern of manhood must be 
furnished by God Himself. He has furnished 
the pattern of perfection, and supplied this ideal 
to the soul-cry of humanity in the perfect char- 
acter of Jesus Christ. He must be of necessity 
the crown and center of all revelation. All else 
is but accessory. 

The faith, which on the part of man, would 
restore the lost harmony, must be an act of sur- 
render of being voluntarily to this ideal, which 
appeals to his intuitive faith as the true ideal. 
He is the truth, the way; by Him is restoration 
to life. 

The final test of this special revelation of the 
perfect man is experience. No dissenting voice 
on the part of humanity has ever been heard to 
the fact that soul-surrender to the Christ as the 
perfect ideal brings soul rest and the restoration 
of harmony with God. Refusal to yield being to 
the Christ is unbelief. The soul which exercises 
it continues in sin, and must reap the conse- 
quences of disaster to being, which must follow, 
when being is put into antagonism to eternal law, 
just as surely in the spiritual world as in the 
physical. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 75 

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou 
shalt be saved." * "He that belie veth shall be 
saved. He that belie veth not shall be damned/' f 
The teaching of this Scripture is clear. Man's 
salvation, or restoration to harmony with God, 
depends upon an act of faith upon his part, di- 
rected to the person of Jesus Christ as its object. 

Again, "Ye will not come unto me that ye 
might have life." X I would have saved you, 
but ' 'ye would not, ' '§ says the Savior. Here the 
volitional element of faith is made prominent and 
decisive. Man is responsible for disaster to his 
own being, by reason of his unbelief, or refusal 
to yield submission to the truth as embodied in 
the person of Christ. He might have believed; 
he did not, — the natural and inevitable result is, 
— "Behold your house is left unto you deso- 
late." || 

We have given, then, — man, a sinner, — 
Christ, a Savior, or truth manifest, — submission 
to Christ required; this submission is called an 
act of faith. Salvation by faith, then, means 
simply voluntary surrender of being to Jesus 
Christ, who is the truth apparent, Christ re- 
ceived, is His own vindication. He satisfies by 

* Acts xvi : 31. f Mark, xvi : 16. t John v : 40. 
I I,uke xiii : 34. || Luke xiii : 35. 



76 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

bringing to completion. Jesus Christ is the com- 
plement of human nature. 

"The doctrine of justification by faith, " says 
Professor Harris, "is not an arbitrary require- 
ment: but faith is the necessary condition of a 
right life for every finite person, and pre-emi- 
nently necessary to the justification of a sinner, 
who by his sin is separated from God and cannot 
be restored to union with him any otherwise than 
by trusting God in Christ and willingly receiving 
his grace as it is offered in the gospel and brought 
to men in the Holy Spirit." . . . "Justifi- 
cation conditioned on faith is itself justification 
on condition of right character, and must be 
through life the continuous and vitalizing sup- 
port of all right character and of all good works. 
In trusting God in Christ the communication 
with God is re-opened." * 

We see in Scripture the reciprocal value of 
faith and knowledge, just as we saw it in the dis- 
cussion on intuitional faith. "Faith cometh by 
hearing, and hearing by the word of God." f 
Erroneous faith if sincere is corrected by larger 
knowledge of revelation, as in the case of Cor- 
nelius. The duty of spreading the light is also 

* Self Revelation of God. p. 545. 
t Rom. x: 17. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 77 

apparent. " Go preach the gospel."* It is 
God's method to instruct humanity by personal 
communication of the truth. There is no differ- 
ence in this respect between spiritual revelation 
and physical or natural revelation. God instructs 
humanity in physical discoveries by personal 
communication. The law of gravity, the print- 
ing press, steam power, electricity, etc., were 
revealed to one or two individuals and by them 
communicated to others. The extension of this 
knowledge is gradual, it is not yet universal. 
There are races still existing to whom the sight 
of a steam engine, or a trolly car, would be in 
the nature of a revelation from the supernatural. 
The knowledge of Jesus Christ as the perfect 
ideal of humanity, and supreme object of faith, 
is revealed at first to a few, and by them com- 
municated to the many. Some have not yet 
heard. The possession of this knowledge car- 
ries with it the duty to communicate it. The 
whole economy of preaching the gospel, while 
addressed to the whole man as a reasonable be- 
ing, more particularly appeals to his intuitional 
faith than to his excursive faculties, and he finds 
that by the act of faith, or immediate voluntary 
submission, his intellectual faculties themselves 

*Mark xvi : 15. 



78 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

are quickened, and a wonderful illumination 
quickly follows. He that " wills to do his will 
shall know of the doctrine,"* and it is histori- 
cally true that true knowledge, and enlarged in- 
tellectual vision, at once follow faith, or soul- 
surrender to truth. 

"The act of submission' ' says Christlieb, f 
' 'brings with it the reception of light, and the 
communication of a fuller moral and religious 
knowledge, thus producing sound and enlight- 
ened views on all fundamental points, such as 
the doctrine of God, the world, the destination 
of man, sin and its cure; — views which must lead 
to a sound practical judgment, and a conform- 
able course of life. So far, therefore, from faith 
being unreason, it is in truth the highest form of 
reason, and the only way to progressive perfec- 
tion of the intellect. Innumerable instances 
might be adduced to prove this power of faith in 
thoroughly cultivating and infinitely raising our 
moral intuitions. The fact that the opponents 
of revelation so often reproach its defenders with 
'obscurantism/ only goes to prove that they 
completely misapprehend the nature and effects 
of faith." 

*John vii: 17. 
fl. Cor. ii: 14. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 79 

"Spiritual things/ ' says Scripture, "are spirit- 
ually discerned." This is but another form of 
stating the truth we have arrived at by our rea- 
soning. The initial act of faith puts the soul into 
harmony with spiritual things, and from this van- 
tage ground obtains a larger spiritual vision. 

Our conclusion is that Scriptural Faith is not 
different from philosophical faith, or any other 
faith, in its real nature. It is, of course, differ- 
ent in its object, purpose, and effects on being. 

Instances of Scripture faith are numerous. 
We cite but one for illustration, the well known 
case of Abraham. "Abraham believed God, 
and it was counted unto him for righteous- 
ness,"* t. e., by believing God, he was made 
righteous. He yielded to God in submission of 
being. God tested that surrender by a command 
apparently inconsistent with Himself. The pa- 
triarch staggered not, but yielded submission to 
the command issued from the source of all truth, 
rather than to his own conception of inconsist- 
ency. At the decisive point of obedience, God 
supplies a substitute for the intended victim, vin- 
dicates both Himself and Abraham, who has 
given, in this act of his, a sublime example for 
all time, of the victory of faith. The obedience 

* Gen. xv : 6. 



SO PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

of faith, though in short-sighted ignorance of 
God's plan, led to a fuller knowledge of that 
plan, to wonderful enlargement of soul and be- 
ing. Submissive faith leads to light. Surren- 
der of being brings visions of God. 

And in seeing God by faith, man finds himself. 
Soul-surrender which brings the vision, leads to 
self-discovery ; and self-discovery enables one to 
find his peculiar place in the world-plan of the 
Infinite. A man's life-success depends thus up- 
on his faith. When, by faith, he sees God, and 
finds himself, he feels stirring within him the 
movings of Divinity, and that conscious power, 
which smiles at adversity, and rests only in 
victory. " Happy is the man," says Carlyle, 
"who has found his work, let him ask no other 
blessedness." "No man," says C. A. Dickin- 
son, " can reach any great measure of success in 
this world unless he believes himself born for a 
great destiny. His future will, in a sense, be 
about the size of his faith." 



X. 
CREDULITY OF UNBELIEF. 



"We are like the poet Shelley, who, after he had sunk 
into blank atheism, as regards religion, could not stay- 
content, but began forthwith to people his brain and the 
world with griffins, and gorgons, and animated rings, and 
fiery serpents, and spirits of water and wind, and be- 
came, in fact, the most mythologic of all modern poets; 
only that he made his mythologic machinery himself, 
out of the delirious shapes exhaled from the deep athe- 
istic hunger of his soul. And the new Mormon faith, 
or fanaticism, that strangest phenomenon of our times 
— what is it, in fact, but a breaking loose by the human 
soul, pressed down by ignorance and unbelief together, 
to find some element of miracle and mystery, in which 
it may range and feed its insatiable appetite; a raw and 
truculent imposture of supernaturalism, dug up out of 
the earth but yesterday, which, just because it is not 
under reason and is held by no stays of opinion, kindles 
the fires of the soul's eternity to a pitch of fierceness 
and a really devastating energy. And were the existing 
faith of powers unseen and worlds above the range of 
science blotted out, leaving us shut down under athe- 
ism, or mere nature, and gasping in the dull vacuum it 
makes, I verily believe that we should instantly begin 
to burst up all into mormonism, or some other newly 
invented faith, no better authenticated. 

Into this same gasping state, in fact, we are thrown by 
our new school of naturalistic literature, and we can 
easily distinguish, in the conscious discontent that nulli- 
fies both our pleasure and praise, the fact of some tran- 
scendent, inborn affinity, by which we are linked to 
things above the range of mere nature." * * * * 
"Grazing in the field of nature is not enough for a being 
whose deepest affinities lay hold of the supernatural, and 
reach after God." —Horace Bushneu,. 



CHAPTER X. 
CREDULITY OF UNBELIEF. 



"They did not like to retain God in their knowledge." 
— Rom. i : 28. 

It might be asked, if the God-idea be a deliv- 
erance of intuitional faith, how then shall we ac- 
count for the variations in the ideas of men 
regarding God, worship, and religious observ- 
ances? We answer that, underneath variety in 
form there is still a fundamental unity, when 
traced back to the intuitive belief, in man's con- 
ception concerning God.* We believe a more 
complete induction will substantiate this claim. 

Variety in form and conception is due to differ- 
ences in environment, birth, heredity, education. 
With diversity of environment there follows di- 
versity of development of ideas, as well as di- 
versity in bodily appearance. And, moreover, 

^Present Day Tracts Vol. X., No. I/VTI. p. 10. 



84 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

errors begun in sin and unbelief, are in a sense 
propagated. 

Faith, outraged by unbelief, avenges itself 
upon being. The native impulse of the soul to 
believe something is persistent. When the soul 
has refused subsmission to truth, it gropes in 
the darkness of unbelief for some substitute, 
which it intellectually attempts to make plausible 
to itself in its state of unbelief. Hence arise su- 
perstitions, skepticism, various theories of relig- 
ion, and atheism, and idolatries of every sort. For 
as Paul has declared: " Because that, when they 
knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither 
were thankful; but became vain in their imag- 
inations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 
Professing themselves to be wise, they became 
fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible 
God into an image , ' ' etc . . . . . ' ' And even 
as they did not like to retain God in their knowl- 
edge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. ' ' * 

Here the intuitive nature of the God-idea is 
recognized, and the baleful effects of unbelief 
depicted, in the "reprobate mind," and idolatry, 
which is the revenge of faith. 

A rebellious heart often rushes to the extreme 
of credulity, having once rejected the truth, ac- 

*Rom. i 121-29. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 85 

cepting, at the demand of faith, a monstrous cari- 
cature of it, or is given over by perversity in 
wickedness, to believe a lie. Israel at Kadesh 
Barnea,* having rejected by unbelief, the coun- 
sels of God to go forward, believed monstrous 
and unwarranted tales about the dangers ahead. 
"They could not enter in through unbelief." f 

Christlieb, in declaring that atheism is a ' 'moral 
fault," also adds: "Every moral fault avenges 
itself. The refusal to acknowledge that which is, 
and absolutely is, and is directly certain to every 
heart, leads to the acceptance of that which is 
nothing but a deceptive shadow. Man must have 
a God. If he rejects the true God he must make 
a God for himself, and this is of necessity a false 
one. Man must believe in something. If he 
does not believe in the Eternal Reason, he be- 
lieves in unreason; if he does not accept as the 
truth the Living God, he believes in the idol of 
inanimate matter. ' ' J 

A careful examination of the arguments ot 
unbelief, in the various attempts of skeptics to 
oppose Jesus Christ, as the only hope of salva- 
tion, fully substantiates this position as to the 
credulity of unbelief. We confess to the opinion 

* Numbers xiv : 30. f Heb. iii : 19. 

t Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 143. 



86 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

that there is little honest skepticism. We be- 
lieve it almost invariably roots in what is com- 
monly called a bad heart, rather than in intellect- 
ual difficulties of the head. In short, skepticism 
begins in unbelief, or a refusal of soul submis- 
sion to truth. 

To illustrate this point carefully analyze, if 
you will, the argument of any professed infidel, 
and you will find, underlying all verbiage, cer- 
tain fundamental principles presupposed and as- 
sumed at the beginning, upon which the whole 
argument rests. These presuppositions illustrate 
the credulity of unbelief. They are postulates, 
which are in essence untrue, yet are assumed 
without demonstration at the beginning of the 
argument and throughout its development. 

These false postulates of credulity are assumed 
in place of the Truth, which intuitive faith should 
have accepted, but has refused. The truth once 
refused, the soul builds its false postulates of 
unbelief, which are the antithesis of the truth, 
and on these false postulates proceeds to develop 
an argument antagonistic to the truth rejected at 
the outset. 

Analyze, for example, the argument of Strauss 
of the Tuebingen School in his naturalistic life 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 87 

of Jesus, in which he attempts to develop the 
mythical idea as to the origin of the Gospels. 

His false presuppositions and assumed postu- 
lates upon which he builds his argument are: — 

(1) A Pantheistic conception of the universe. 

(2) The impossibility of miracles and revela- 
tion. 

(3) The consequent necessity of accounting, 
by so-called natural laws, for all phenomena, as, 
for example, the Gospels and the character of 
Jesus. Hence an elaborate argument to account 
for Jesus and the Gospels on naturalistic princi- 
ples, without admitting the supernatural. 

We have a right to presume that back of these 
presuppositions, which illustrate the credulity of 
unbelief, there was in the heart of Strauss a pos- 
itive rejection of Jesus Christ, a refusal of soul- 
surrender on his part to Christ as the revealed 
truth. This refusal by the revenge of outraged 
faith led to the erection of these false postulates, 
and then follows the prostitution of the intellect 
to unbelief in a philosophical attempt to bolster 
up and defend these false postulates by elaborate 
and subtle reasoning. 

These same false fundamental postulates lie at 
the foundation of the argument of the entire 
Tuebingen school and their followers. We ven- 



88 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

ture the assertion without further proof that this 
is the history of all philosophical unbelief. 

These presuppositions of unbelief argue that 
the mind of the investigator is not perfectly open, 
and candid in its investigation of the question in 
hand. The case is prejudged. The argument 
is in a circle. It is therefore invalid, and falls to 
the ground, inasmuch as it amounts in the end to 
a " begging of the question." 



XI. 

TRIUMPHS OF FAITH. 



It is not unbelief that makes any man strong. Not by 
the shutting out of a lie, does power come. It cannot 
come by any negative. It must be positive. Deny the 
falsehood with all your power and voice. That is your 
duty. But that does not make you strong. It only 
makes you ready to be strong. Having turned the lie 
out of doors, throw these same doors open to the truth. 
Then strength will come pouring in. It has always been 
through men of belief, not unbelief, that power from 
God has poured into man. It is not the discriminating 
critic, but he whose beating, throbbing life offers itself 
a channel for the divine force, he is the man through 
whom the world grows rich and whom it remembers 
with perpetual thanksgiving. What is there to compare 
with faith ? Is it not the very glory of the life of man ? 
The great question is, How shall men attain it ? The 
one great answer to that is, God is always seeking every 
life. Man has not to seek God, but to admit God. You 
say, 'I want God. How shall I have faith in him, so 
that I can receive Him to my life ?' God wants you 
vastly more than you want Him, but you cannot come 
to Him as long as your lust, cruelty, falsehood, frivolity, 
lie like a heavy stone in the very way by which He must 
come. Cast out that sin because it shuts out the higher 
life. Then find a duty to do, as if to wave a signal to 
your God that you are ready for His coming, — nay He 
has come, for it is His power in you that makes you 
first want Him." — Philips Brooks. 



CHAPTER XI. 
TRIUMPHS OF FAITH. 



"This is the victory that overcometh the world, even 
your faith." I. John v : 4. 

Childlike faith is humble, and by his humility 
man becomes great. The men who have believed 
most have wrought most for humanity, and in so 
doing have wrought most for themselves and for 
God. 

The men of faith are the ''mighty men, the 
men of valor." They who have sacrificed most 
for humanity have believed most. Freedom was 
a supreme conviction, before it ever became a 
fact. We enjoy what faith bought with blood. 
It was men of faith who brought forth our na- 
tion. They surrendered their entire being to a 
supreme conviction of truth, therefore they pre- 
vailed. 

"Wake in our breasts the living fires, 
"The holy faith; that warmed our sires; 
"Thy hand hath made our nation free; 
"To die for her is serving thee." 

— Holmes. 



9 2 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

It has been men of faith who have given us our 
great scientific discoveries. Faith is the telescope 
of the soul; sees in the abysses of the unknown 
evidences of new worlds of truth, and then calls 
upon tardy intellect to verify its seemingly su- 
pernatural insight. Faith locates unseen Nep- 
tunes, and at last the eye beholds them. The 
list of heroes of faith in the realm of science is 
long that we forbear to begin the catalogue. 

Men of faith, rather than the logicians, are the 
seers of humanity. In a few individuals, per- 
chance, the two qualities have been happily 
united, and when so united, God gives us in 
them, the great origin ai, men, the World Gi- 
ants, who tower across the centuries, and reflect 
the glories of the upper world of truth from one 
to the other, and to the world beneath them, as 
giant peak answers to peak across the lesser 
mountains beneath. 

"O welcome pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope, 

"Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings." 

MlI/fON. 

This seerlike power of faith allies man to the 
Infinite. If Plato could arise and testify, he 
would say, it is evidence of man's pre-existence. 
Is it not rather an echo of a higher estate, from 
which man has fallen, and a pledge of his return 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 93 

to that sweet harmony with God, where faith 
spontaneously flows in blessed fruition, unvexed 
by sin's distemper and deadening blight? 

But if language failed the Sacred Writer,* in his 
attempt to depict the achievments of faith, vain 
will be our effort to realize or portray its victo- 
ries. It is indeed, "the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," in 
its Godlike grasp of spiritual verities. 

"The k things unknown to feeble sense, 

"Unseen by reason's glimmering ray, 
"With strong commanding evidence, 

"Their heavenly origin display. 
"Faith lends its realizing light — 

"The clouds disperse, the shadows fly, 
* 'The invisible appears in sight, 

"And God is seen by mortal eye." 

As to the practical and ethical value of faith 
upon the masses of mankind, we have but to 
open the pages of history to be at once convinced 
of the inseparable character of faith and mor- 
als, f Wrong-heartedness, or wrong inclina- 
tion, rather than wrong-headedness, bears fruit in 
unbelief, with all its corrupting influences. 
When a true faith in God has declined, religion 

*Heb. 11. 

tUhlhorn, "Conflict of Christianity with Heath en- 
ism. ' y p. 94. 



94 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

has become corrupt, individuals and races de- 
graded, nations effeminate and demoralized, until 
many of them, by the revenge of faith, have 
actually disappeared forever from the face of the 
earth. History, as well as Scripture, declares 
that, "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." * 
" Faith and unfaith can ne'er be eqnal powers, 
"Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all." 

— Tennyson. 

Doubt and unbelief degrade being, and retard 
progress. On the other hand, faith begets hope 
and expectation. It gives to the soul that up- 
ward and forward look, which conquers despair. 
It is the magnet of humanity without which 
heaven is a dream and redemption a delusion. It 
gives a divine buoyancy to the soul, which en- 
ables it to over-ride all difficulties, to exult in 
adversity, and to rest in assurance of victory, 
amid influences which seek the destruction of 
being. It is the only key to completeness of be- 
ing and heart-rest for humanity. It binds us to 
our Maker. God give us men of faith ! 
44 Faith is the subtle chain 

44 Which binds us to the Infinite: the voice 
44 Of a deep life within, that will remain 
44 Until we crowd it thence/' 

— Kuzabkth Oakks Smith. 

* Romans xiv : 23. 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 95 

4 'Through this dark and stormy night 
4 'Faith beholds a feeble light 

"Up the blackness streaking; 
"Knowing God's own time is best, 
"In a patient hope I rest 

"For the full day-breaking." 

— Whittier. 

" Fai th* builds i a bridge across the gulf of death, 
"To break the shock blind nature cannot shun, 
"And lands thought smoothly on the farther shore." 
—Young,— Night Thoughts. 

Faith gives assurance of a life beyond the pres- 
ent, and makes real the invisible. Without this 
hope, life becomes blank despair and nothingness, 
no pledge of completeness of being anywhere, 
no basis for that high ideal of moral perfection, 
which has brought advancement to the race thus 
far. The hope of immortality, which the power 
of faith alone makes real to the human soul, be- 
comes thus the mightiest of all motive powers in 
the moral uplift of mankind. Faith sees the 
beyond. 

"In idle reverie one winter's day 

"I watched the narrow vista of a street, 

"Where crowds of men with noisy, hurrying feet, 

"And eager eyes went on their restless way. 

"Idly I noted where the boundary lay, 

"At which the distance did my vision cheat 
"Past which each figure fading fast did fleet, 



96 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

"And seem to meet and vanish in the gray. 
"Sudden there came to me a thought, oft told, 

"But newly shining then like flash of light, — 

" 'This death, the dread of which turns us so cold, 
"Outside of our own fears has no stronghold; 

" 'Tis but a boundary past which, in white, 

"Our friends are walking still, just out of sight.' n 

Helen Hunt Jackson. 

"Alas for him who never sees 

The stars shine through his cypress trees! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play! 

Who hath not learned in hours of faith, 
The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 

That Life is ever lord of Death, 
And Love can never lose its own. 

Whittier. 



XII. 
CHRIST AND HIS ENEMIES. 



" Whatever may be the real nature of faith, its power 
cannot be contested. There is a profound reason for 
the Gospel affirmation that it can move mountains. 
The great events of history have been brought about by 
obscure fanatics armed with nothing but their faith. 
The great religions that have governed the world, and 
the vast empires that have extended from one hemis- 
phere to the other were not built up by men of letters, 
of science, or by philosophers. The creed on which 
the civilization under which we live was founded was first 
spread by obscure fishermen of a Galilean market town." 



"Faith has no enemy to be really afraid of except 
faith." 

"In religion as in politics, success always goes to be- 
lievers, never to skeptics. — Gustave I^K Bon. 

FAITH. 

"She reels not in the storm of warring words, 
She brightens at the clash of 'Yes' and No/ 
She sees the best that glimmers through the worst, 
She feels the sun is hid but for the night, 
She spies the summer through the winter bud, 
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, 
She hears the lark within the songless egg t 
She finds the ifoun tain where they wailed 'Mirage.' " 

— Tennyson. 



CHAPTER XII. 
CHRIST AND HIS ENEMIES. 



"They are dead which sought the young child's life." 
— Mat. ii : 20. 



I . Introductory . 

We have accomplished the task which we 
assigned ourselves, in the previous pages, but 
feel constrained to add a chapter, arising from 
historic studies, which we may term confirma- 
tory and suggestive. 

Philosophers are generally thought of as a sort 
of sacred priesthood, who sit apart by themselves, 
wrapt in contemplation, and whose musings are 
of little concern to the common people. Yet it 
is an observed fact that the deepest thought of 
genius gradually saturates the common mind, — 
diffuses itself more or less slowly, and reveals 
itself perhaps, after the author is dead, in the 
concrete thinking and acting of the people. 



IOO PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

In this age of wonderful intellectual quicken- 
ing everything hastens. The descent from the 
speculative to the practical and concrete is ac- 
complished almost before our eyes. Spencer, 
Huxley, Darwin, and the host of them, are com- 
mon property, not Olympic dwellers surrounded 
by mysteries. The mass-level of humanity has 
lifted, so that the genius does not tower quite so 
high, and the descent is more quickly accom- 
plished. Let us endeavor by careful thinking to 
shorten if possible the descent. Do not fear that 
we shall think too high to be practical, or that 
religion will suffer. Religion has never been the 
loser by high thinking. 

We aim in the present chapter to point out in 
as condensed statements as possible certain facts 
from history and speculation, which we hope may 
be at least suggestive of further research. 

II. History Prophetic. 

1 'They are dead which sought the young child's 
life." This is history,— the history of the child 
Jesus and His enemies. Herod sought the life of 
the child, but Herod dies while Jesus lives. All 
history is prophetic. Happy is the historian who 
is also a philosopher, and has learned this secret. 
And it might be added in parenthesis, — that the 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. IOI 

historian should also unite with the prophetic 
sense the poetic, for the world-life is a song. 
There is a majestic harmony and a sublime rythm 
in the song of the centuries. Now, the "Mis- 
erere" wails through the vaulted chambers, and 
harsh discord rudely breaks the harmony, but 
only to heighten its charm, as heard through the 
distance of centuries. Again, the "Halllujah 
Chorus" is heard from pole to pole, and the pean 
of victory portends the final triumphant issue in 
the sweet harmony of peace. 

"They are dead :" This was whispered by the 
angel in the ear of Joseph, when he had fled with 
the child Jesus into Egypt. The babe had tri- 
umphed over the great world-power, represented 
in the haughty Herod. Herod is dead, but 
JESUS lives! How this magic key unlocks the 
rich treasures of the history of the child Jesus, 
as the years run into centuries, and the centuries 
into milleniums ! Malignant Jews, Judas, Pilate, 
the greatest world-power ever known have killed 
Jesus and securely buried Him. The world has 
triumphed, — Jesus is dead; but, 

The bursting tomb the truth declares, 

He is not dead but risen ; 
While nature in the triumph shares ; 

The rocks in twain are riven, 

and Jesus stands before the astonished disciples, 



102 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

— alive ! Judas, Pilate, Jews, — where are they? 
They are dead but Jesus lives ! 

Then, — the long struggle, but Jesus in the 
heart of Polycarp, Ignatius, Felicitas, Perpetua, 
and the multitude of their companions in martyr- 
dom, is mightier than the Empire. The Roman 
Empire, where ? dead, but jesus lives ! 

A dangerous philosophy, and a false theology 
seek by their subtle and insinuating arts to 
poison the growing child, but the spirit of the 
Christ in the hearts of John, Origen, Justin, 
Tertullian, Athanasius and their compeers ex- 
pels the malignant poison of atheism, gnosticism, 
paganism, and false teaching, and Jksus lives, 
to satisfy the heart-hunger of millions, and to 
become the hope of the race. 

Julian, the apostate, mighty prince, but a 
dreamer of romances, will restore the ancient 
culture in all its glory, and destroy the child. 
But Julian, like a dissolving view, melts from the 
scene, cursing his gods and leaving as his memen- 
to a tribute to the conquering Nazarene. Julian, 
the romantic dreamer, — dead, but jesus lives ! 

The long night of worldly prosperity, more 
dangerous than all former enemies, attempts to 
extinguish the light of the world, but the long 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. IO3 

benighted Jesus bursts with new effulgence upon 
the world in the great reformation. 

Again, the great philosophic war rages, and is 
now at its height, and these subtle enemies, more 
dangerous than world-powers, seek the life of the 
child. What of the outcome ? We sometimes 
tremble, we do not doubt. Over the graves of 
some, the words of the angel are already written, 
'They are dead," and we believe this prophecy 
of history will soon be fulfilled as to others, and 
ultimately as to all ; while some who fought so 
violently against the child have only left fortifica- 
tions, and accumulated material, which have 
proved His helps and allies. 

So rapid are culminations in our time that ag- 
nosticism has been born and grown old in the 
lifetime of a man, and is already tottering in de- 
creptitude under the sturdy blows of the child, 
for whose life some feared, when this new giant 
appeared. 

III. Infidelity Self-destructive. 

Speculative philosophy, in trying to do away 
with Jesus, has proposed many substitutes to sat- 
isfy the religious nature of man, but no two 
schools can agree as to the substitute. There 
is in Christianity, it is true, variety in creed state- 



104 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

ment, but underneath this variety can be discov- 
ered a fundamental unity, which tends to vitality 
and stability. We find in infidelity, on the con- 
trary, a destructive lack of unity and want of 
system. The only apparent union is hatred of 
Jesus. 

In contrast, note the marvelous consistency of 
Christianity with itself in all ages, and under all 
conditions of thought. The German philosopher, 
who aspires to be the founder of a new school, 
begins by modifying or overturning the opinions 
of his predecessors. He must startle the world 
at all cost. Jesus, on the contrary, bases all 
His teaching upon that of His predecessors, and 
declares that it is his purpose to fulfil their teach- 
ing to the minutest detail, at the same time clear- 
ing the old from false and materialized concep- 
tions, bringing to light its true spiritual signifi- 
cance. The sublime consistency of revelation is 
proof of its divine origin, while the sublime in- 
consistency of professed substitutes is proof of 
their human origin. 

The opposers of Christ do however agree that 
the religious nature in man is constitutional, and 
an indispensable factor in his developement. So 
much admitted, the inadequacy of all substitutes 
and their incompatibility with each other, prove 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 105 

the reality and Divinity of the only religion, 
which fully satisfies man's constitutional relig- 
iousness. 

For example, Mr. Harrison would substitute 
the " Worship of Humanity' ' for the Christian 
religion, but Mr. Spencer refutes Mr. Harrison, 
and shows conclusively that the worship of hu- 
manity cannot be a religion, that will satisfy 
man's constitutional religious aspirations, nor 
serve in the reformation of society. Mr. Harri- 
son, on the other hand, overthrows, Spencer's 
religion of the unknowable, and proves it inade- 
quate. 

George Elliot tried to substitute the "Consola- 
tions of Philosophy" for religion, but lived to 
confess a heart-faith inconsistent with her in- 
tellectual infidelity. "I have," said she, "too 
profound a conviction of the efficacy that lies in all 
sincere faith to have any negative propagandism in 
me. In fact, I have very little sympathy with free- 
thinkers as a class, and have lost all interest in 
mere antagonism to religious doctrines. " Pro- 
fessor Seeley of England would satisfy his soul 
with "Enthusiasm for Physical Science," and 
Matthew Arnold thinks religion is "Morality lit 
up with Emotion." 
Again, the basal principle of the agnostic Philos- 



I06 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

ophy, which makes the unknowable the Abso- 
lute Being, and affirms! that this Being may be 
conceived of as Power, but denies personality, is, 
when summarized, self-contradictory, and more- 
over, the agnostic is opposed by the Postivist, 
who denies the existence of Absolute Being, but 
affirms personality in the idea of divinity, but 
discovers this idea only in humanity. 

The Postivist Comte declares that ideas and 
ideas alone govern and modify society; that the 
social mechanism, in the last analysis rests wholly 
on opinions. Mr. Spencer rejects this view. 
" Ideas/ ' he says, "do not govern and overthrow 
the world; the world is governed or overthrown 
by feelings, to which ideas serve only as guides. 
The social mechanism does not rest finally upon 
opinions, but almost wholly upon character.' ' 

Hamilton and Mansel are forerunners of Spen- 
cer in stating agnostic principles. Spencer ap- 
proves their agnosticism, but at the same time 
refutes the position held by them, that we have 
only a negative knowlege of the Absolute Being. 
He says, "if the non-relative or absolute is pres- 
ent in thought only as a mere negation, then the 
relation between it and the relative becomes un- 
thinkable. And if this relation is unthinkable, 
then the relative, itself is unthinkable for the 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 107 

want of its antithesis, whence results the disap- 
pearance of all thought whatever." 

Mansel, being of a pious mind, attempts to res- 
cue religion from the disastrous results of his 
philosophy, and lays himself liable to the merited 
rebuke of J. S. Mill. — "A view of religion which 
I hold to be profoundly immoral, — that it is our 
duty to worship a being whose moral attributes 
are affirmed to be unknowable by us." 

Again, pantheism and materialism are found to 
be incompatible and contradictory in their funda- 
mental principles and method. Pantheism starts 
with the universal, of which the individual is only 
a manifestation. Materialism starts with obser- 
vation of particulars, and seeks the unity of a 
system by the induction of general laws. 

But turn to the continent. Here the conflict 
is still more marked and interesting. Strauss, in 
order to establish his mythical theory of the origin 
of the Gospels finds the infidel Paulus in his way. 
He proceeds to demolish Paulus to clear the way 
for the foundation of his own theory. Strauss, 
later in life, recants his first theory, to be in ac- 
cord with the new doctrine of Baur, and after- 
wards recants his recantation. 

Baur nullifies the mythical theory of Strauss, 
and substitutes his "Tendency Theory" of an 



108 PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

irreconcilable difference between the Petrine and 
Pauline parties in the early church, and by this 
theory attempts to account for the origin of the 
Gospels. Renan refutes the Tuebingen School. 
He allows an earlier date for the Gospels, and 
more nearly approaches the accepted belief. He 
discards both the mythical and tendency theories, 
and propounds his "Legendary Theory" for the 
origin of the Gospels. This theory proves not 
quite sufficient, and he couples with it the idea 
of a "pious fraud" on the part of the founders of 
Christianity. 

We see thus how the enemies of Jesus in their 
attempts to overthrow Christianity tear each 
other in pieces. In the meantime Christianity 
goes on with multiplied and increasing power 
consoling, comforting and inspiring humanity. 

The enemies of Christ have done this, moreover, 
for the cause they would oppose: they have fur- 
nished much material of exegetical value; they 
have stimulated the defenders of Christianity to 
greater watchfulness and zeal, and heroic efforts 
in its defence; they have, as it were, but dug the 
sand from the base of the pyramid, and revealed 
more fully its massive and eternal foundations. 

Christ is marching to His final triumph over 
mankind. It remains for philosophical specula- 



PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 1 09 

tion to select the true from the false among the 
contending enemies, — to discover points of con- 
tact and approaches to the truth, and to labor for 
that union so much to be desired. 

In a comparison of the ethical and practical 
value of faith and science, history has already 
pronounced in favor of faith, and from this tri- 
bunal there is no appeal. Science, in foolishly 
attempting to drive out faith, has only demon- 
strated the necessity of faith, and its own utter 
inadequacy to meet the demands of man's native 
religiousness. 

From current literature we cite a voice in cor- 
roboration. It is an editorial comment upon an 
opinion of the French Savant, M. Brunetiere, and 
is as follows:* 

"For science, in spite of its immense additions to hu- 
man knowledge, and of its great service to human pro- 
gress, has failed to justify the hopes of those who be- 
lieved that it would reveal ! the vital principles and the 
ultimate truths. It has also failed as a practical social 
and moral force. It has not established a universal mor- 
ality; it has not organized Society into better forms; it 
has not explained the mystery of the origin of man, nor 
has it lifted the veil from his final destiny. There are 
many things connected with the origin of ethics, of so- 
ciety, of language even, upon which it has failed to cast 

*"The Outlook," Feb. 23, 1895, p. 301. 



IIO PHILOSOPHY OF FAITH. 

any searching light. There is a growing feeling that 
after science and scholarship have done their best there 
remains still great unexplorable regions in which are to 
be fonnd the ultimate causes and explanations of things, 
and which must remain matters of faith. ' ' 

The task then, which remains for the men 
of the present, and of the coming age, near 
at hand, is to develop that true synthesis of faith 
and science, which human thought demands, and 
out of which shall develop such a marvelous 
spiritual uplift as the world has never known. 
We believe the time is not far distant when there 
shall be a vast and far-reaching reawakening and 
revival of religious faith, and with it a corres- 
ponding gigantic stride in intellectual achieve- 
ment. 



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